Montco mental health department lays off 58 employees

NORRISTOWN – A woman working in the county behavioral health and developmental disabilities department says she is dusting off her resume for the first time in eight years, after she was given the surprise news Friday morning she would be laid off from her job around the beginning of next year.

According to Joyce Snyder, of Lansdale, a support coordinator for developmental disabilities working in Pottstown, she and her colleagues within the Montgomery County Behavioral Health/Developmental Disabilities Department received an e-mail at 9:07 a.m. Friday urging them to report to a conference room at 11 a.m. for a mandatory meeting.

Snyder said her boss, Eric Goldstein, administrator of the department, told them that the department was dissolving and services will be outsourced to private companies.

County Communications Director Frank Custer said 58 employees were informed Friday morning of the permanent furloughs, but would be given assistance in job placement with private companies. He said the department was trying to avoid a conflict of interest based on preferential treatment.

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“There are outside organizations which provide the same services, and another part of the (mental health) department has to decide where to assign clients,” said Custer.

“When you have a choice between assigning them to a group of county workers or to an outside agency, favoring the county group over the outside group is a potential conflict of interest. They should not have to make that decision.”

This news comes on the heels of Thursday’s third quarter budget update before the Montgomery County Board of Commissioners, presented by Montgomery County’s Chief Financial Officer Uri Monson. Monson said the projected annual operating deficit for 2012 is just under $3.9 million.

“The primary reason for the widening of the gap is a result of the state cuts in funding for mental and behavioral health services,” Monson told the commissioners.

“While both revenues and expenditures are down as a result of the mid-year adjustment, the county continues to pay providers based on the 2011-2012 budget figures, but is receiving revenue advances based on the new 2012-13 budget. In the absence of these cuts, the 2012 deficit would be nearly eliminated.”

According to Custer, both Northampton and Philadelphia counties encountered the same “conflict of interest” problem, and also recently eliminated a similar group of case management professionals. He said the transition will save Montgomery County taxpayers about $40,000 a year.

“This move today has been contemplated over some time,” said Custer.

Snyder said she is stunned.

“Our reaction was shock, silence, followed very quickly by anger. A lot of us were asking about the people we’ve been working with for years. He said it’s not our problem anymore.

“I provide assistance to people with developmental disabilities – the most needy of the population,” she went on to say.

“We’ve all busted ourselves working really hard and it made no difference at all. I’m still a civil servant and have known that from the beginning. They haven’t given me a raise in forever and now I don’t get to work my heart out anymore.”

Custer said the layoffs would go into effect sometime in the beginning of next year.